Though not important to the events of Bacon's Rebellion, I learned something interesting while reading the firsthand account from Thomas Mathew.
Thomas Mathew starts his whole account of the events of that time by describing three odd events that happened in 1675 that he said were seen as ominous signs of a coming disaster:
A large comet that was seen each night for a week came across the sky like a horse's tail.
Huge flocks of pigeons that seemed to fill the sky. Their weight broke branches of trees when they roosted. It was said that the last time that had happened was the last Indian massacre in 1640.
Swarms of flies, each about an inch long, which came out of holes in the ground and ate the tops of the trees for about a month before leaving.
It seems a bit superstitious to read this description, particularly when others are attributing the conflict to more solid things like failing crops and sagging export prices, but it definitely gives color to my understanding of the events in the Virginia Colony in 1675.
Thomas Mathew starts his whole account of the events of that time by describing three odd events that happened in 1675 that he said were seen as ominous signs of a coming disaster:
It seems a bit superstitious to read this description, particularly when others are attributing the conflict to more solid things like failing crops and sagging export prices, but it definitely gives color to my understanding of the events in the Virginia Colony in 1675.